KIEV (Sputnik) – The number of deaths in Ukraine resulting from the influenza outbreak has reached 313, including five children, the Ukrainian Health Ministry reported Thursday.
“According to original information, since the beginning of the flu season there have been 313 deaths confirmed from the flu, with five deaths among children under 17 years of age and two pregnant women,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.
22 January 2016, 03:39 GMT
The hardest hit regions were in the Odesa region with 40 deaths, the capital of Kiev with 37, the Donetsk region with 24, the Cherkasy region with 22, and the Lviv region with 18.
The ministry did not specify if the H1N1 virus, known as swine flu, was the cause of any of the deaths, as some earlier Ukrainian media reports had said.
On January 26, Health Minister Aleksandr Kvitashvili officially announced a flu epidemic in the country.
